Santa Cruz Puma Projecthttp://www.santacruzpumas.org
Thu, 02 Aug 2018 13:52:05 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8The San Mateo Puma (56M) – One Year Laterhttp://www.santacruzpumas.org/2016/05/the-san-mateo-puma-56m-one-year-later/
Sun, 15 May 2016 00:00:08 +0000http://santacruzpumas.org/?p=1865On May 18 2015, a young male puma wandered deep into San Mateo. He was caught by California Department of Fish and Wildlife wardens and transported back into nearby open space. We met the wardens near the release site to place a collar on him.

One year later, 56M is still roaming the scrubby hills of coastal San Mateo County. Most pumas occasionally come close to our human neighborhoods when they are traveling through or searching for food. In the year since 56M was removed from downtown San Mateo, he has also periodically been on the edges of developments; however, he has not returned deep into cities.

GPS locations of puma 56M, caught in downtown San Mateo in May 2015.

The Puma Tracker section of our website allows you to track 56M’s movements throughout his coastal territory.

Puma 56M was photographed by a trail camera on a hiking trail in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in 2015. (photo courtesy of the National Park Service)

Tracking the survival of young pumas, following the dispersal paths they take once they leave their mother, and observing where and how they establish their adult territories is a growing part of our research. We are now tracking several puma families, and – like 56M – we look forward to following their lives.

My day started early today in the Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve. I had been out since 5:30am searching for puma 26M in order to locate him for recapture. My plan was to start early and search for the radio signal from his tracking collar, and if I found him on property we had permission to work, to then call one of our houndsmen to assist with recapturing him. That is the standard procedure when trying to recapture pumas to replace the batteries on their collars on our project.

Unfortunately, I had no luck finding him. I started driving down from the mountaintop to head home, and I saw fresh territorial scrape markings along the roadside. Upon inspection, I considered the scat on the scrapes to be too dry on the outside to have been made last night. Instead it was probably from 2 nights ago. I had detected 26M from an airplane 2 days prior and knew that he was not near this location, so this was likely a different male puma.

Up ahead on the road, I found puma tracks – big puma tracks. The first ones I saw were a bit dusty, like the wind had blown on them. From many years of tracking in this area I know the wind tends to blow in the afternoon when the sun’s heat creates wind currents. Upon closer look, though, there was more than one set of tracks and they looked fresher. The day before was a Sunday, and on weekends there are many hikers and mountain bikers on this roadway. The fresher set of puma tracks were on top of the bike tracks. Putting together all of my information, it was seeming that the puma had likely been in this area for a couple days because of the drying scat and wind-blown tracks, plus the fresher tracks on top of yesterday’s bike marks.

Mark of puma dragging a deer across the road

Pumas rarely spend two days in the same spot unless something is attracting them there, usually food or a mate. It seemed that there was likely more to the story if I looked a bit closer. I quickly found a funny-looking mark in the road, like an elongated human heel. I realized it was the back of a puma’s hind leg, and there was another one next to it, with a funny long mark between them – the puma’s long and furry tail! Most importantly, right next to the puma’s sitting mark was a broad line across the road, like a stroke painted with a brush. The marks were very fine, and in the dust it looked like they were made by hair dragged through the dust. This mark was also on top of the bike tracks making it from last night.

Despite years of tracking pumas, I have only found this a couple of times under these circumstances, and it is the mark of a puma dragging heavy prey, in our area usually a deer. Deer are too heavy and large for a puma to pick up off the ground, so the puma drags it. I looked carefully at the dust and could see that it had been smeared onto the rocks in one direction only, which showed that the deer had been dragged in that one direction – downhill. That made sense from the puma’s point of view – if you needed to drag something that weighed 100+ pounds, which would be easier for you: to drag it uphill and fight gravity, or downhill?

The drag mark led off the road. However, it was hard to follow because of the leaves, so I doubted my ability to follow it and instead followed the drag back where it entered the road from uphill. About 50 feet up I found a place where there was a struggle and the hair of a puma against a small tree. This was the place where the puma killed the deer, a rare find indeed!

Knowing that, and fresh with confidence, I went back to the drag and followed it across the road. With some searching I saw what I was looking for to tell me there the drag had led – a single blackberry leaf, still alive but bent weirdly away from the road. Some force has to bend a plant like that; it doesn’t happen on its own. I headed in that direction and soon found a line of disturbed leaves on the ground and dents in the leaves the size of small plates – the puma’s tracks. I slowly followed the trail through the forest, paying attention to disturbances, for about 300 feet and then the tracks vanished.

Antlers and ear of a buck mule deer, killed, eaten, and buried by a male puma

Weird! Puma’s don’t just vanish – they are big animals! I must have missed something. I stopped, took some deep breaths to release frustration, and quieted my mind… And then I heard them —flies, lots of them— close-by and to my left. That many flies only gather when there is something attracting them, like bees to a flowering bush. In this case, it was a pile of leaves with a deer ear and antler sticking out of it. The puma’s kill!

I don’t know where the puma is now but he’s probably close by. I’ve watched the GPS locations from 26M shift slowly to the west over the last year, and he’s no longer visiting some places that are great puma habitat – oak trees with numerous deer and female pumas. That has suggested that 26M had a new neighboring male puma. This is probably him that killed this deer. We’ll try to collar him and then maybe we’ll find out.

One day later…

We attempted to catch the puma with the hounds later that day but ground conditions were too dry. Months and months of the annual summer-time dryness take their toll. Moisture holds scent, and animals need that moisture to enable them to follow a track (Note: To experience this yourself, find a scented object and smell it. Now, went your fingers and dampen your nostrils and smell again). After this failed attempt, we pulled the remains of his kill into a box trap.

Our PhD candidate, Justine Smith, led a team that camped out near the trap. During the night, under a nearly-full moon, the puma walked into the trap. Our team tranquilized and fitted him with a cutting-edge accelerometer-equipped collar. He is now dubbed puma 66M by our project. 66m is approximately 4 years old, typical of a resident male puma, and he weighed an impressive 138 lbs. We look forward to tracking him further in the coming years, and seeing how he interacts with 26m and the other pumas in our study.

]]>38F: Catching a Thiefhttp://www.santacruzpumas.org/2015/10/38f-catching-a-thief/
Sun, 18 Oct 2015 18:52:11 +0000http://santacruzpumas.org/?p=1818We recaptured puma 38F last week. She’s a 4 year old female. 38F’s previous claim to fame was being the star of a great web video that was produced by San Francisco’s KQED and the eventual mother of this cute little guy…

Using radio-telemetry collars, like we do on this project, requires that we periodically recapture each puma to replace the batteries on the collar. Currently the batteries on our collars need to be replaced about every 2 years, although the life of the battery continues to get longer as technology improves. The batteries on tracking collars run out in stages. First the GPS unit stops working, and we no longer get location data, then lastly the radio telemetry beacon stops.

We’d attempted to recapture 38F using dogs a couple of times last spring, however on both occasions she climbed too high in the tree for us to think she’d be safe if the tranquilizing drugs took effect before she climbed down. This is a rare event, but one that we plan for in case it happens. As a result, despite our best efforts to recapture 38F, the batteries began to run out on the collar without our being able to replace them.

Houndsman Cliff Wylie with dogs (from left) Cleo, Pearl, and Boomer.

Last week, we were fortunate because 38F came to us. We had left a couple of deer in the forest to unthaw before placing them as bait. When we went back to retrieve them the day after, one of them had been dragged away and buried. The faint radio-tracking signal from 38F’s collar told us she was close by and the likely culprit of this petty theft. We set a trap, and with a team of volunteers and undergraduates monitoring the trap, we caught 38F shortly after sunset. We are not likely to see her in person for another two years until it is time to replace the batteries on her collar again.

All of the gps locations for puma 38F since May 2013. Green lines are boundaries of public parklands.

The Bay Area is a great place to research relationships between people and pumas. The region is blessed with progressive land planning that has set aside vast open space areas for recreation and privately-owned areas that are managed for timber and wildlife habitat. Between and surrounding them are places where people live: small communities, major urban edges, sparse or sprawling dwellings. Our research shows that pumas wind their way through all of them. 38F lives almost entirely in the quiet open space of the San Vincente Redwoods and data about her life provides a valuable comparison to the lives of pumas that have more contact with people. Through work like this, we will continue to learn more about this landscape we inhabit from the puma’s view, and how to make choices that allow it to support people and pumas into the future.

]]>RIP 36m – Genomics godfather to all pumas!http://www.santacruzpumas.org/2015/10/rip-36m-genomics-godfather-to-all-pumas/
Fri, 02 Oct 2015 21:58:49 +0000http://santacruzpumas.org/?p=1798Remember 36m? This is the guy whose home range included the UCSC campus and went all the way up north close to Big Basin! This is 36M’s territory. Each circle is a GPS location separated by up to 4 hours.

36m also had a penchant for crossing Western ave and coming into town. If you were a raccoon trying to hide in one of those canyons – watch out, cuz 36m had your number.

But mostly 36m hung out outside of town in the coastal bluffs and redwoods that look out over the pacific ocean – some of the most beautiful country in the world. That’s where he really made his living, killing deer and keeping tabs on his better halves – 29f,10f and 25f and their kittens (watch him courting 10f here). They were his pride – only ever meeting to mate – but 36m kept them safe by keeping any intruding males away.

Last week we discovered 36m’s collar was on mortality mode. When we went in to investigate we found that he had died about 3 weeks previously. Unfortunately his body was too decayed to tell definitively how he died, but we were able to rule out a vehicle strike, gunshot or another puma. Its most likely that he died of poison but we can’t be sure. Right before dying he had eaten a raccoon in the same place that he had previously eaten a coyote and cat. The problem with eating these smaller predators is that they can be full of rodenticides from the small rodents they eat that have been poisoned.

While 36m was a bad ass puma by any measure, he might one day come to be the most recognized puma anywhere. That’s because we just recently (well really it was Ed Green and Beth Shapiro) completed a de novo contig assembly of his genome. In short time, this will be the puma genome against which other puma genomes can be compared and used to test all sorts of evolutionary and ecological questions about pumas.

We first got to know 36m as a young puma appearing clandestinely in trail cameras set up within 3m‘s territory (3m was the first male puma in our study with a territory almost identical to what became 36m’s). 3m was a big bruiser and we couldn’t imagine anything happening to him, but soon after 36m arrived, 3m was no longer, and all of a sudden the cubs in that territory started getting killed by a puma (most notably 2f’s cubs). After that brief period of mayhem, 36m established his territory and all has been calm for puma on the north coast for the past few years. But within days of 36m dying last month, 29f’s kitten was killed by a puma in Wilder State Park. The next few months are likely to be tough ones for pumas on the north coast, until a new male is firmly established in this territory. So it goes with puma…

]]>2 week-old kittenshttp://www.santacruzpumas.org/2015/09/2-week-old-kittens/
Mon, 21 Sep 2015 04:30:47 +0000http://santacruzpumas.org/?p=1782This is a pair of 2 week old puma kittens. We make our initial visit to dens at 2 weeks in order to confirm it is a den and count how many kittens were born. We return at 4 weeks to place collars on kittens in order to track their growth and survival. Our published research has found that human development has negative impacts on nursery site selection.
]]>Pumas Above San Josehttp://www.santacruzpumas.org/2015/09/pumas-and-san-jose/
Sun, 13 Sep 2015 10:00:12 +0000http://santacruzpumas.org/?p=1784A photo of a puma family above the night time lights of San Jose. This photo was captured with a motion-triggered camera by our field technician Chris Fust. The effects of urbanization and human activity are a focus of our project. We have found that human development affects where pumas choose to have dens and scent marking areas, and also affects how often pumas kill prey.

We have been using motion-triggered video cameras for over 4 years to study puma communication behaviors. Here is a video we captured of a mother puma and two of her playful yearling kittens. We suspect that the mother puma is 52f before we placed a collar on her. For more information on how pumas communicate, see our published paper by Max Allen and Chris Wilmers from 2014.

]]>Three new puma kittens take on the world!http://www.santacruzpumas.org/2015/06/three-new-puma-kittens-take-on-the-world/
Tue, 23 Jun 2015 13:34:02 +0000http://santacruzpumas.org/?p=1748On Saturday, June 20, post-doc Max Allen, technician Chris Fust, and I parked in a grassy field in Wilder Ranch with one mission in mind. We were setting out to visit what we believed to be a newly established den by 25F, a female puma that lives primarily in Wilder. 25F had been present at the den for a few days, so we had waited to go investigate to avoid disturbing her away from her den. Finally, 25F had gone hunting, and we had our chance.

Max, Chris, and I walked across the meadow, through the forest, and down a steep slope as our GPS informed us that we were continuously getting closer. When we were near the den, we split up to try to locate the kittens. Within minutes, Chris had found the den, complete with three nearly 5-week-old kittens. We fitted each one of them with an ear tag for identification purposes and a small, expandable collar that will fall off in a few months. The collar allows us to track their survival in these early and important months of their lives. Find out more about why we collar kittens in an earlier post here.

57M up close

59M giving a wave to the camera

These kittens live in a pretty pristine area in Wilder Ranch State Park, but they still face some threats. Puma kittens are sometimes killed by male pumas or other predators. They also need a lot of energy and nutrients, so they rely on their mom to have high hunting success. All three kittens are males, so in about a year and a half, they will have to leave their mom and find their own territories, possibly putting them as risk from crossing roads and freeways.

However, for now, the kittens are healthy, feisty, and safe with their mom. We look forward to following their journeys to adulthood!

This morning I went on a walk and found 3 fresh scats from last night. Two were from gray foxes and one was from a striped skunk, and all three were choc full of raspberry seeds. I myself had eaten my first raspberry of the spring three days before. On my walk this morning, I found five ripe raspberries. My guess is that the foxes and skunks were able to find many more because they are less picky about ripeness and are more willing to brave the poison oak to find them.

What this brought to mind is how animals rely on seasonal sources of food. Right now, pumas are eating a good number of black-tailed deer fawns. For example, the last 4 of 36M‘s feeding sites that we have investigated have all been fawns. Fawns are an abundant food source this time of year for pumas, and they are likely easier to catch than adult deer. This could be a particularly useful resource for dispersing juveniles, out hunting on their own for the first time, or for females with dependent kittens to feed.

]]>The Journeys of Young Pumas, and Welcome to Puma 56Mhttp://www.santacruzpumas.org/2015/05/the-journeys-of-young-pumas-and-welcome-to-puma-56m/
Tue, 19 May 2015 17:45:28 +0000http://santacruzpumas.org/?p=1719A young male puma was captured and returned safely to the wilds yesterday by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and San Mateo Police. As scientists studying pumas, we often receive questions about pumas when this happens. Usually the first questions are “Why does this happen?” and “Is it happening more frequently?” The short answers are “It’s because of puma biology”, and “Probably not”. The reasons behind that require a more detailed explanation. First…

Some basics about puma biology (we’ll add these facts together later on)

Young pumas stay with their mother until they are about 18 months old, in which time they grow from 5 pounds to 70 pounds (females) or 90 pounds (male). Overall, there tend to be equal numbers of male and female cubs born. We’ll say here that a typical female puma is considered an adult at 2 years old, and a male puma is considered an adult at 3 years old, because by those ages they seem to have adopted typical adult behaviors.

Puma territories. Large shapes are males. Small shapes are females.San Jose is the gray area at the top.

Pumas can mate any time of year. Because of this, the grown cubs can also leave their mother any time of year. However, in the Santa Cruz Mountains there is a seasonal spike in the birth of puma cubs and a corresponding seasonal spike in cubs that leave their mothers. That spike in dispersing young pumas happens in Spring.

Adult pumas are territorial. Our GPS collar data shows that male territories in the Santa Cruz Mountains average ~90 square miles, and female territories average ~40 square miles, and a male’s territory will overlap with 3-4 females. Said another way, there are ~3 adult female pumas for every 1 adult male puma.

Adult female pumas tolerate young females better than adult male pumas tolerate young males. Young females tend to travel a fairly short distance from where they grew up and form their own territory in a suitable place within just a few months.

Adult males – who may weigh 130 pounds and have years of experience – persecute comparatively scrawny young males that are novices and weigh just 95 pounds. It takes 1 or 2 years for a young male to gain the experience and pounds of muscle to maintain his own territory… …if he can find one. Adult males tend to like remote places with fewer people, which means that the safer places may be closer to people.

Add it up

All of this adds up to create a lengthy journeying phase in the life of young male pumas. They leave their mothers and start to wander in search of a place without an adult male puma and then seek to keep a low profile while they grow in size and experience.

Adult pumas have their territories and don’t venture much outside of them, but these young pumas explore new places. Pumas are stealthy and so they prefer to travel near the cover of forests and brush. Streams and forests are easy places for them to move and look for deer.

Pumas are active mostly at night (which happens to be when people aren’t), and it sometimes happens that a puma follows one of these streams or forests right out of the hills and into a quiet neighborhood at night, only to have it turn into a noisy, busy place of human activity once the sun comes up. So, the puma tries to lay low and find its way back out the next night. Sometimes he can stay unseen for a couple of days. When seen, these pumas aren’t likely acting aggressively. They are more likely waiting for darkness or seeking a way back to the quieter forests. All the cases of young pumas wandering into local cities that we’ve observed involve young males.

It’s a tough road for these young male pumas, and many of them die. In open wilderness such as the Sierra Range or Big Sur, we may expect that adult males would eventually find and kill them. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, however, run-ins with people are frequent causes – the most common being killed by cars while crossing busy roads or being shot for being making an easy meal of small livestock. Still, a few of them get a paw-hold in the more remote forests, find a vacant territory, and survive to adulthood.

56M, recovering and almost ready to continue searching for a territory

Since our research started in 2008, we’ve tracked the dispersal paths of 5 young pumas, including:

Add to that list now 56M – the puma that was caught yesterday in San Mateo. We met with California Department of Fish and Wildlife wardens at the release site and put a GPS tracking collar on him so that we may continue to learn about this important group of young pumas, the young males.

Why are young male pumas so important?

From an animal’s point of view, it’s possible that the Santa Cruz Mountains are cut off from the nearby mountain ranges. Think about it – the mountains west of San Jose, Palo Alto, San Mateo are all surrounded by water: San Francisco Bay, the Pacific Ocean, or Monterey Bay. There is a narrow area between San Jose, Gilroy, and Watsonville that connects this wonderful mountain range to the rest of North America. But, it’s hard for pumas to move through this area because there are many human influences that pumas stay away from – Highway 101, residential communities, and vast areas dedicated to farming tasty berries in the Salinas Valley.

Since adult pumas have territories that they stay in, and young female pumas tend to move only a few miles from where they are born, it is up to the journeying young males to try and make it across to the neighboring mountain ranges. Can they do it? And, what happens if they can’t?

When animal populations become small in number and isolated from each other, over time relatives begin to breed with each other and strange genetic abnormalities surface that affect the animals. This can make it harder for those affected individuals to survive or they may have fewer cubs, and a spiraling decline can occur. Allowing animals to move between those isolated populations can prevent this, but that takes planning and prioritizing by people amidst our other activities like housing and road construction, farming, and other choices about how land is used.

An important piece of continuing to have pumas in the Santa Cruz Mountains long into the future is to ensure that they stay connected to their neighbors in nearby mountains and do not become isolated. Putting GPS tracking collars on young male pumas can show us if they are able to get through these areas and if they are, where those places are located. So far, none of the males that have tried have made it across. We will continue putting tracking collars on these young pumas to see if – and where – any make it through.

Maybe the San Mateo Puma – 56M – will make it through? Check in with the blog again later. We’ll post an update on his progress.